


Saudade

by Hyb



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Christmas, M/M, Reunion Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-09 21:25:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5555888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyb/pseuds/Hyb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It rains in Orlando, but it's warm inside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saudade

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yeats](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeats/gifts).



> the blame for this nonsense falls squarely on yeats, who wrote [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5455028) and then compounded it with this [irresistible crack](http://freekicks.tumblr.com/post/135670383636/gossipfootball-cristiano-ronaldo-en-la). so here come the belated christmas feels.

 

 

When Cris calls Ricky he answers on the second ring.

“So I'm in Florida,” he stumbles, absent the casual preamble he had planned.

“I saw.” He can hear the smile in Ricky's voice but his stomach drops like a stone, the traffic suddenly too loud.

“I meant to call sooner.” And that sounds worse. I didn't know how to ask, he doesn't say. Someday Ricky will answer the phone and sound like a stranger. Like Cris knew him in another life.

“You think I don't know how busy you are?” Ricky chides. Cris flushes under the blinding winter sun but Ricky never misses a beat. “You should come visit. Orlando isn't Miami,” he adds, the _but_ hanging in the air. There's no Ricky in Miami. “How about tonight?” The spaces between his words take shape and Cris swallows, a dry click.

Only Ricky makes choices feel so easy. Like gravity was tugging you in the same direction all along.

“Sure,” he says. Cloud rolls over the sun and he can see again. His squint vanishes and a burgeoning headache evaporates along with it. He never noticed the ache, only its absence. “Tonight is good.”

 

 

 

Cris dials a cab from his hotel outside Orlando, leaves the suite and its pristine sheets. His skin feels hot and tight from his shower and he walks with an unsteady hitch. Too long under the spray, steam clouding the air, tiles sweating condensation. When he flicked on his razor it whirred once and emitted an agonized grinding. Cris stared at it and then the time on his phone, swore, and bolted into his jeans. Ricky would tell him no one should have to look perfect all the time. It's a dusty old argument.

The cabbie never looks twice at him. He drives slow, cutting through streets with dead names. Signs for theme parks loom along the horizon like a mountain range. The radio crackles a language Cris doesn't recognize. More than once he reaches into his pocket to ring Junior for the night, but he already did, and anyway it's too late to call again. Every other person he loves is an ocean away.

In the dark he arrives. His spinning head tells him it's morning, that he hasn't slept, but it's just past midnight here. Rain is misting down, casting haloes over the streetlamps. Ricky is pushing a pair of tiny bicycles across the front lawn. The smaller of the two is dragging, pink streamers fluttering from the handlebars. Cris overpays in a rush, slaps over rasping green bills that he doesn't count.

The door slams behind him and Ricky's head snaps up at the sound. A grin splits his face and his lips move, out of earshot. One of the bikes keels over and he glances back down, frowning as if he wants to scold it. Cris is close enough to help him now, bends down and Ricky jerks him back up. Claps him into a hug that seeps right into his bones, forbids any awkward uncertainty. He's wearing two weeks of stubble at least, his chin rasping over Cris's jugular. It jerks through him like a hook, urgent.

And they're standing in the grass like idiots in fucking Windermere, in the rain. It's too much, and Cris cracks. Furrows his brow and points like a tourist.

“Sorry, I'm looking for Shaq's house, who are you?” He reaches for the words in English, a shelf he knows by touch in the dark.

“You found me, I'm Shaq." Ricky mimes shooting a basket. "Want the grand tour?” He hasn't stopped grinning yet.

Through the garage, the piled shoes, the stairs creaking. Cris toes out of his damp socks, pads quiet as a thief. Inside, the house is dim. The shadows are long. The hall echoes. Ricky asks after his flight, the drive, something, and Cris hears himself answer. Ricky steers him by the elbow, and when they turn a corner the Christmas tree blazes like a torch. The boughs cascade with tinsel like molten silver, ringed in fairy lights. Cris can smell pine, apples, something like cardamom. A thought occurs to him and he blinks, interrupts Ricky in an awkward spill.

“Are the kids here?” A sour spasm of guilt for assuming, even hoping otherwise.

“Tomorrow,” Ricky demurs, and his eyes are soft like he knows. “I get them tomorrow. Tinsel is- it's very big right now. Isabella wants a snake,” he adds, light. Cris bites off a startled sound.

“But you're afraid of snakes.”

“Terrified,” Ricky agrees, the corner of his mouth quirking. “It's how they move.” He pinches his hand to a point and wiggles his long arm, then shudders on a laugh. And Cris is laughing too, sliding a hand under his forearm, the pulse of his wrist. Ricky rubs a knuckle over Cris's cheek, his stubble.

“This is new. I like it,” he adds, quelling Cris before he can protest. “I'll feel you on my skin after you leave.”

He says it so simply the words don't land for a beat. Then Cris reels, his blood swoops hot. Staggered, concussed. Ricky exhales a distressed sound and there are arms around his waist, Ricky's warm mouth on his cheek.

“ _Meu caro_ , you look so tired,” he murmurs, soft like Cris is a horse to be gentled.

“Don't.” Ricky draws back, and he looks so concerned Cris could fold like paper. “Please.” Cris tries on a smile. “I'll tell you on the phone, okay? Not here. Take me upstairs or fuck me on the floor, _mano_.”

And they both know the answer to that. Cris knows it by sense memory, how Ricky tracks the lines of sight from the windows, steering him toward the stairs. Friends can visit, but friends don't kiss. In the echoing dim of the landing he cradles Cris's skull. His hands are beautiful but his arms feel broader under Cris's palms. All that boxing, probably. The shape of Ricky shifting until the map Cris holds in his mind is just a ghost. Ricky's mouth tastes like honey and lemon, that grandma tea he drinks.

Cris falls to his knees without thought, greedy for the shiver in Ricky's breath.

“I thought about calling you the whole flight,” he says in a rush, muffled by Ricky's belly. His breath rebounds hot over his face.

“You can call me any time you want. Any time you need. _Are_ you getting what you need, Cris?” There's no change in his voice, no jealous hitch. Cris kisses the back of his hand instead of answering, lingering over the strangeness of Ricky's absent wedding ring. The first time he hasn't fucked Ricky as a married man, his mind supplies.

“Don't be glad,” Ricky says quietly. There's an unhappy furrow between his brows. Cris sinks back on his heels, doesn't deny it. He is glad, small and ugly and selfish. Ricky was always a better person. Cris always wanted to devour him whole.

“You didn't answer the question.” Cris shifts forward and Ricky halts him with a look. He wants to moan for that look, beg for it. “Are you taking care of yourself? Is Sergio helping you?”

It knocks Cris out of orbit but it shouldn't. Ricky always knows.

“He called to ask me if I minded,” Ricky offers, neutral. Cris would say, just hands, just to forget for a few minutes, but it sounds worse. Ricky couldn't understand, he's only touched two people in his life. He couldn't know how to give and take and never kiss, close your eyes and think of someone far away.

“He's just worried Iker will fuck somebody in Porto,” Cris grouses. It's probably true. Trying to cover his karmic ass or something. “I don't want to talk about it, okay? Who knows when- you know I wish it was you.” He seizes Ricky's hips. Too hard, maybe. “Always. Ricky, you know.”

“ _Belo_ , of course I know. You think I don't pray for you every day?” He shouldn't even be real. Distant lights curve golden over his cheek, his winged collarbones, the chain running under his collar.

Cris skates his palms up Ricky's flanks, rucking his shirt up to his ribs. Lingering, he kisses a garland over the chalice of Ricky's hips. A flush blooms and Cris hums until skin spasms against his teeth. His lips buzz. As his hands grasp for fastenings and zips, he mouths the seam of Ricky's torso. It only makes sense that all Ricky's fissures are sleek, dipping in from muscle like clay shaped by hand. Ricky's lashes are heavy over the silver glint of his eyes; his neck is arched long and he swallows once, hard. On a wavering breath he clasps Cris's nape. His palm is cool from the rain, smells clean like grass. With his thumb he rubs tight, focused circles behind Cris's ear.

Cris inches down Ricky's jeans and rocks back on his heels, disbelieving. He traces his own initials and the stitched number seven along the waistband and Ricky expels a sheepish puff of air.

“You've been wearing these all day?” He doesn't wait, butts his cheek against the swell of Ricky's erection and breathes him in, fresh like the stolen shirts at the bottom of his drawer will never be again.

“Thought you might like it,” Ricky says simply, carding his fingers through Cris's hair. He's going to make a mess of it and Cris can't remember how to care.

“I do,” he swears, a bubble of laughter escaping. Dizzy, weightless. “I do.” He can feel the blood warmth of Ricky, the steady drum of his pulse. Times like this he can cup Ricky's knee like a talisman, like he can will the scar tissue not to ache when it rains. The head of Ricky's cock is pushing past his waistband, flushed slick and pink as his mouth and too pretty not to kiss.

“You know this is only for you, right?” He asks because he needs Ricky to hear. Drags his hips forward, shucks cotton down, and then he's nudging past Cris's soft palate, silk and salt. Down his throat, too soon, swallowing around the weight of him. Cris is greedy and the lack of air begins to darken his sight.

Ricky is trying to speak but he sounds shocked when he comes, cracked open and he belongs to Cris like this: artless, wonder rippling over his face and his beautiful body arching.

When he comes down from the headrush Ricky looks fond and exasperated. Cris can feel the aftershocks in his slackening cock, twitching up his belly. Red still, where Cris has rubbed his mark. It's only fitting. He feels Ricky like a bruise, aching sweet and tender to touch, and then when he least expects it. Running down the beach, smelling fresh cut grass on the pitch.

 

 

 

Stairs and bed. Ricky is craning his long neck back toward the door.

“Oh- I baked cookies.” He looks genuinely torn.

“Will the cookies still be there in an hour?” Cris tries for patience but he's peeling out of his shirt and jeans, canting his hips up from the sheets. His pulse beats in his fingertips.

“ _Xodó_ , you think I'll remember anything else in an hour?” A scalding, wet kiss against his thigh. “But they're on racks, they'll get stale,” Ricky adds, grave. He still has his shirt and his briefs on. Cris ought to fix that. But he's so real, overwhelming. He balances on his forearms and blankets Cris with his body, the vast anchoring weight of him. Cris's breath slows to match, steady as the tide.

Ricky's hands are everywhere. Sleeking up his arms, hooking his knee up to his chest. He catches Cris's nipple on his tongue and it's sweet but brief, a spark when Cris's entire body is crackling with electricity. It's how a goal feels, lightning down his spine. How it always felt, colliding with Ricky in clumsy celebration, rolling in the turf, tasting the salt of his sweat.

Cris thinks his eyes are wet. Ricky is mouthing him, a silver streak down his chin. His hands look huge splayed around Cris's hips. He's nudging behind Cris's balls, telegraphing his intent with exploratory touch. Like always, like Cris wouldn't do anything. He thinks unbidden of Sergio in the changing room, a bruise like teeth high up on his shoulder blade. The hot fleeting weight of Iker's eyes. How one person can drag you out of yourself.

Then he hears when Ricky feels it. The pad of his finger, a tender press and he slips inside where Cris is already slick. Ready and Cris chokes for the rightness of it, for Ricky's wounded, wanting moan around his cock. His wrist aches in remembrance, pressing his cheek to the cool tile in the shower, forcing his muscles through the forgotten sensation, to be ready for Ricky. He's panting damp against Cris's hip now and another finger curves in like nothing. Still he slathers his palm and Cris's thighs are shining, his dick is slippery and spattering his belly when Ricky crooks three fingers at the sweetest angle, breaching Cris wide.

It's his name Ricky murmurs against his hip like a spell, the liquid spill of Italian. Cris suspects poetry; he'll rag him about it later. His calf is hooked over Ricky's shoulder, he's kissing the taste of himself from Ricky's tongue and though he wills his eyes open he's seeing silver starbursts, gold flares. His palms and the soles of his feet burn hot and cold, his spine is a bow. His thighs are quaking like he's been running an hour, helpless stop stutters as Ricky overwhelms him. When Ricky finally lets him come his body is one long shiver, a plucked string. Too much and too good. The wave drags him under white noise.

The buzzing of his skin fades to a hum. He blinks and Ricky is easing out of him, turning his wrist with care. Cris's entire body twists in readiness but Ricky never guides himself in. Cris opens his mouth to protest – Ricky is hard, a steel pulse against his thigh – but a cracked yawn spills out. Another blink and his eyes are heavy. Ricky is kissing his chin, his nose, murmuring something Cris can't catch. He's sinking onto his side, tugging Cris back squirming against his chest. His lips graze the nape of Cris's neck.

 

 

 

Cris knows he's awake because everything hurts. His knees throb, and a spasm knifes up his calf. It feels early, and late. Cris sits up and smears a hand down his face, eyes adjusting to the pale dawn streaming under the curtains.

Ricky is sleeping with an arm thrown over his head. He must have peeled out of his shirt in the night. His cross has fallen to the side. Cris shifts up on to bare feet, shuffles into his underwear and his shirt. Hardwood floors creak, but in a few paces he finds a catlike balance, quiet.

There are butterflies and dinosaurs taped to the fridge, a purple sip cup drying beside the sink. Cris measures out a protein shake, snorting fondly. Ricky always buys the banana flavor, it's disgusting. There really are cookies: a sugar dusted fleet of them in orderly rows. They're dry but delicious, coffee and cardamom and orange, or something.

Ricky creaks down the stairs, his eyes puffy with sleep. In passing his fingertips trail over Cris's waist. He's wearing the briefs again. Sensible white, of course. Ricky pours from a steaming kettle, mixes his banana protein powder into instant coffee heedless of Cris's groan. When he props a hip on the counter their elbows brush. Ricky sips his coffee and hums when Cris laces their fingers together.

“Do you have to go?” His hair is a tangle, and Cris's heart swells terribly. He really does need to leave.

“Tomorrow,” he decides. “I'll go tomorrow.”

Ricky is beaming before Cris remembers.

“Shit, I'm sorry. The kids.”

“Don't swear,” Ricky scolds, absent. Cris thinks of windows and line of sight, measures out his geometry before he drops a kiss to Ricky's shoulder.

“Stay for Christmas dinner,” Ricky presses. He grins when Cris steals another cookie. Fuck it, it's Christmas and if Perez ever implies he's gained weight Cris will hurl him out a window. “They love you. Luca thinks you have magic powers.”

Cris ends up drinking half his coffee. It tastes even worse than he imagined.

 

 

 

Ricky plays carols from the radio, soft little harmonies like bells. He's frowning over a handwritten recipe card from his grandmother, and Cris eyes the massive turkey with trepidation.

“Do you know how I remember you?” Ricky asks, pausing. Cris snatches his hand back from the dish of raisins and affects innocence.

“Stealing your food?” he hazards a guess.

“You never order what you really want,” Ricky laughs. “But, no.”

Cris considers, looks down the length of his body. Ricky fucked him slow in the shower, water in their mouths and their eyes, and he's still feeling unsteady in the knees.

“Ah. No, not like that. Well. Not just like that.” He looks so fond Cris could cry. Cris is tired, he realizes, as if he's thinking it for the first time. He's so tired.

“I remember you walking out of the ocean,” Ricky says. His eyes are steady. “You broke the surface and oh, the way the sun hit you, you were all lit up in gold. You were made of light. _Caro_ , don't ever think I forget you. You don't forget the sun at night.”

Cris swears. His eyes are burning. No – his cheeks are wet and it's soundless, like a river pouring out of him, dampening Ricky's sweater.

“Someday you're going to be mine,” Cris urges into the shell of his ear. His voice is thick. “And I'll be yours.”

“Cris. I am,” Ricky says. “I am. You are.”  
  


 

 

 

  


  


  


_When I explained to someone that what I wanted to write about was the memory of things that I thought were lost for me, I was told that the Portuguese word for this feeling was_ saudade. - _Nick Cave_

...

**Author's Note:**

> bless everyone still clinging to this ship. if you want to yell about criska (or seriker) feelings, you should hit me up on [tumblr](http://h-yb.tumblr.com/).


End file.
